


Hello, Monday

by cebolla



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: M/M, Panic Attack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cebolla/pseuds/cebolla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz buckles under the pressure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Boulder Won't Budge

**Author's Note:**

> second chapter will be out just the moment i'm done with it! [ non-edited. ]

As the echoing sounds of bullets drew nearer, Fitz firmly decided that he was not, in fact, a brave person. Field agent work would look good, Simmons had assured him, but he was almost positive it would do him no good in hell.

"Fitz! The faster you finish this, the sooner we can get the hell out of here!" Ward was nearby, covering his back, the only shield between him and the disturbingly close enemies. The yelling was far from a comfort.

"Right, right I know--I just have to finish re-calibrating the the laser and-and look! There's only a small chance that this jury-rigged battery will even be able to maintain the laser, and on the off chance that-that I've gotten the correct percentage, it could blow and--" Fitz felt his sentence stammer to a jagged end, his lungs suddenly filling fast and sorely, and he felt it rising like a slow wave, a painful clenching up from his gut. Pins and needles in his shoulders and neck, his face paled-- he needed it quiet. He felt ill.

He needed to get away. He need to get away, _**now**_. It was too much. Everything was overwhelming, and there planted in the middle of a catastrophe was Fitz and Ward and they were alone and Fitz was incompetent and there were men with guns outside and they were going to die, they were going to die they were going to--

"Fitz!"

There was more gunfire. His hands were shaking too violently to even hold his tools correctly.

" _ **Fitz!**_ " 

He looked up dumbly, vision blurred, everything seeming to tremble and quake only for Fitz to realize that it was, in fact, just him. Small comfort that was.

"Fitz, you need to pull it together. _Please._ " Ward's tone was odd and off-kilter. A tone dragging at the end that Fitz dimly registered as akin to the one gnawing at his insides--they were alone out here. Alone, trapped in a hole, and the only way out was to burrow through the wall and Fitz hands were shaking so hard he could barely hold the wires. 

He'd have thought deep breaths were to be taken to fix his current situation, but it seemed they were all he could take, chest heaving and muscles clenched. Maybe smaller breaths, then? His subconscious didn't agree as he gulped in another painful breath.

He closed his eyes, hands skimming the machine below, following the curvatures. He zeroed in on the shape of the small box, strong enough to slice through the stone wall in front of them, and forced his numb fingers to move.

He twisted the last wires together, eyes blurring slightly, open only a crack, and-- hoping he'd fumbled for them correctly --jammed in the button along the top.

His eyes were closed and he missed the sight of the laser. Behind his eyes, he could feel the blazing warmth of the blue beam, and suddenly there were rough hands dragging him upwards and out. He stumbled along, his feet loose and unable to support his body and succeeding in feeling so jell-o like he almost doubted they ever did.

Nothing registered-- the ground was a blur, Ward's face was a smudge, the sky a smear...he shut his eyes to turn down the flow of information he was processing. He knew logically that this was a panic attack. An anxiety attack. Irrational! Trivial! His body overreacting!

This information did nothing to comfort him in any way.

He may have felt himself dragged onto a helicopter-- he wasn't sure --and he may have felt an arm, tense around his shoulders, forearm laid over his chest and not soon to ease up, clutching at him the entire way. He wasn't sure of that either, but even in dreamland it was highly comforting.

 _Imagine that. Ward taking care of another human being._ He did find it the least bit odd that they clutched at him such as a drowning man clutched a buoy, as though it were the only other left in the world. As a child clutches their toy to them in comfort. But the thought passed.

By the time Fitz woke, the helicopter had just landed and sitting up made his brain feel bruised. He was splayed inelegantly across the seat, his leg uncomfortably jammed under, in the seat's narrow leg-space. He felt like shit, but the overall damage report suggested he ought to feel incredibly embarrassed about the mission in it's entirety as, so he proceeded to feel even more shitty. Making his way quietly from the chopper into the plane where his bunk was housed, he paused momentarily to make sure no one had noted his departure. He knew Simmons would want to talk, having been split up halfway through the mission, but Fitz just couldn't bring himself to see her at the moment. 

Or much of anyone else. 

Ward had needed him back there, and he'd let him down. It was like he'd not only dropped the torch, but had managed to accidentally trample on it repeatedly until unrecognizable. In this metaphor, the torch was Ward's trust-- Fitz starring as the dumbass rocket-scientist who had decided a job in the direct line of fire would be an 'experience'.

He hurried quickly up the stairs, almost jogging, until he reached his small pod of a room, sealing the door tight behind him. He didn't even bother to change before he flopped face-down onto his bed, humiliated and defeated.


	2. sleepsong

There was a knocking, a light tapping on the door and no matter how loudly Fitz groaned or shoved his face into the pillow, the persistent soul outside refused to be turned away.

He rolled himself over, leaning over the small mirror placed on the edge of his 1 1/2 foot wide by 7 foot walkspace, and tidied what he could of his appearance. He pulled the tie from his neck-- it was a lost cause. His shirt was rumpled, but he no longer cared, instead loosening the top two buttons. He gave up and finally made his way to the door.

As it slid back, he may or may not have visibly flinched back, his foot taking one half step back before freezing in place. In the doorway stood Ward, tall, handsome, bruised and an uncharacteristic look of...pity? Worry? Anxiety? Fitz wasn't quite sure-- plastered on his face. 

He hesitated before making to stand back, an abortive gesture that could have been a welcome or not. Ward tried to make eye contact, but Fitz was feeling too sore for it.

"I just wanted to check up, see how you were."

"Aye, well, I'd say you were a little more worse for wear. I'm fine."

Ward frowned lightly before asserting his way through the door. Too much confident in one overly-manly body, Fitz couldn't help but think bitterly. Porcupine social skills, though. 

"How are you really?" Ward asked him earnestly, eyes looking him dead-on as he turned away from the shutting door. Fitz found in the narrow space of his bubble-room, he couldn't look away.

"Amazing. Not at all on the edge of an emotional break, I assure you." He smiled, humorously. "How 'bout yourself?"

"...I can't sleep."

It was only then that Fitz bothered to look at the clock and realized that it was midnight. He'd been sleeping for ten hours already. More than that, the jackass had woken him up at midnight-- porcupine. He reminded himself of it sternly.

"And--and how can I help?"

"I don't know."

Fitz opened his mouth, but then closed it again. He wasn't sure what to say, so instead they awkwardly stood in silence for a few moments. It seemed tense, and the small room almost made Fitz feel like he had developed some sort of awful tunnel vision.

"Sorry." Fitz snapped out of his stupor, his eyes glancing up just as Ward made to leave suddenly. He brushed past Fitz in the narrow space, their shoulders touching, and before Fitz had noticed, he'd reached out to tug at Ward's elbow.

"Come here." 

He said it softly.

Too much of a man's man, Ward had met him at an impasse. He couldn't ask for what he needed, so although the height difference was a little odd, Fitz pulled Ward's head towards his shoulder, arms wrapping the larger man's body, effectively avoiding any awkward questions or confrontations.

At first, Ward was tense and uncomfortable. He didn't pull away from the contact, but even after moment, leaning in, his body still stayed all hard angles. Fitz figured that was just the sort of thing this lifestyle did to a person-- there was no un-winding, or any moment to let one's guard down-- a person's body wasn't built, in it's natural state, to hurt others. A pause and Ward's hands reached around Fitz's smaller frame.

Fitz's thoughts wandered--he wasn't sure what Ward had done before, but it had almost certainly never involved a team. He surely would have slipped under that same sort of pressure. But of course, that thought drove him to remember his earlier actions, and he found himself suddenly uncomfortable.

"What's wrong?" Ward's tone was firm, though his face didn't lift from Fitz's neck. 

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I just...earlier. About it. About earlier." He cleared his throat to speak, but this time Ward did look up, his brows furrowed in a quick shake of his head.

"Don't apologize-- you have nothing to be sorry for. You aren't a trained agent. You shouldn't have been in that situation." The words he spoke sounded bitter, but Fitz knew it wasn't directed at him. His eyebrows creased slightly, his gaze wandering.

"It wasn't your fault either...neither of us should have been in that situation. It's as simple as that." His arms loosened their grip, and he began to separate from Ward, surprised when he felt Ward shift against him, another look crossing his face that this time, Fitz couldn't read. He didn't voice his thoughts. His mind vaguely wandered towards Ward's past again-- but it was too late to be thinking about such things.

"Okay," Fitz filled in before Ward was scared off again, "sleep?" He hooked a thumb at his bed, barely big enough for one. He was drained suddenly, and he moved towards his bed before he could second-thought himself, barely touching the sheets before he felt an arm catch around his center, tugging him close, the other arm slipping under his ribs securely.

The feeling wasn't uncomfortable, but he was sure he would have to remind Ward in the morning that he wasn't any damned stuffed animal.


End file.
